A debate over same-sex civil union in Peru has grabbed attention this week, with one of the country’s best known intellectuals criticizing the position of the country’s leader of the Catholic Church.
Last weekend on his Saturday morning radio program, Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, who is also archbishop of Lima, called for a national referendum on same-sex civil unions, of which he is highly critical.
“If there is an interest to get into these issues, there should be a referendum, the people should be consulted,” Cipriani said in comments reported by local media.
On Thursday, the Peruvian Episcopal Conference backed Cipriani’s comments, saying that allowing same-sex civil unions would “go against the natural order, distort the true identity of the family, contradict the purpose of marriage, violate the human dignity of all Peruvians, threaten the healthy orientation of children, and damage the fundamentals of our society, which aspires to an integral human development.”
The reaction from the Catholic Church in Peru, which in many ways is a conservative country although church and state are distinctly separate , has been in response to a bill being presented by lawmaker Carlos Bruce to allow for same-sex civil unions. The legislation is expected to be discussed in Congress soon.
Bruce said the legislation would make Peru a “more decent country.”
“The only thing that is going to happen in Peru if it is approved is that we will be a more decent country,” he said. “If this doesn’t pass, I’m going to ask that all the gays and lesbians in Peru be exempt from paying taxes because if they are going to have less rights than other Peruvians, then they shouldn’t pay taxes.”
A key aspect among the legal benefits that Bruce’s bill aims to achieve has to do with Peru’s inheritance laws, which require that a large share of any person’s property is inherited by immediate relatives (spouse, children, or siblings and cousins) and only a small percentage can be left as a legacy to non-relatives.
Cipriani’s calls for a referendum on the issue have come under fire from prominent intellectuals who say that Peru’s Constitution prohibits the use of referendums to curtail the rights of individuals.
Nobel Prize winning author Mario Vargas Llosa, a strong libertarian, has been one of the most prominent defenders of the legislation.
“I’m in favor of civil union, I’m in favor of homosexual marriage, I’m in favor of gay marriage. I think that homosexuals, like heterosexuals, have the right to their sexual lives, to be respected in their sexual lives,” Vargas Llosa said.
In Latin America, same-sex marriage is legal in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.
It is unfortunate that a bill that clearly violates our God-given nature of man and woman should gain favor in Peru. Missionaries sacrificed their lives, beginning in 1532, to bring the truths of the faith that Christ died for. The natives were taught what was morally correct and in line with the very nature of mankind. They were taught that many of their customs and practices were morally wrong.
Today Peru is a leading nation of the continent, fully in command of the essence of truth as given to us and as required of us by Almighty God. To listen to an intellectual contradict the very nature of man is a repugnant experience to Peruvians who know the right path to follow in our brief lives. PLEASE follow your conscience, follow the leadership of Catholic priests and bishops, and you will not err against the will of God.
“Violate the human dignity of all Peruvians” ? That is exactly the opposite of what such legislature would do. Gay marriage is a legal issue not a moral issue, plain and simple.
Dr. Schwartz, clearly, your God is not everybody else’s. This is a matter of human rights, so religion cannot be the code to regulate them. Morality should be based on universal human codes, not on what God ones adores. The world belongs to all humans.
Hard to believe that a person of your education as a doctor would use such a feeble argument. Missionaries tortured people into converting. It’s sad you use such an example and believe religion should be imposed on people. And what practices were morally wrong? You sound like a bible thumper from the mid-west. In fact, I believe you are.
Mr. Cipriani: his flippant proposal to organize a referendum to ask the people if they want gay marriage, is a disgrace to the legal order and Natural Law, that even an altar boy could pose.
First Mr. Cipriani, the referendum has only a political nature. It is the submission to popular vote of laws or political decisions. From this it follows that the principles of natural law can never be subject to consultation for a society to decide whether the Natural Law can be modified or not.
Natural Law, in case you do not know, is the body of absolute, eternal and immutable laws, established by natural human reason, against those who could not attempt any authority. To unfold in a subjective aspect, it originated the inalienable and imprescriptible rights, called individual, human rights and the constitutions guarantee.
Consequently, nothing can alienate, alter or modify the principles of Natural Law. However you. It is proposing that the company decides whether or not to enforce the unnatural marriage. Its absurdity is the aberrated product of crass ignorance. Because no authority and no society is sufficient to modify the absolute legal structures of natural law power.
Carefully document before launching promiscuous opinions to which is you. Accustomed in their foolish homilies.
Alejandro Cruzado Balcazar